The state of our nation

Dude! I was pulling your leg bit. If you reflect some of your posts approach mine in length! ":O}

So when they do,
I first give it a fast read. Then I start at the beginning. I make a real effort to understand what your concerns are on a point by point bases.

Then as I go along I ask myself the same question I ask when I am writing..
.
"Is this true"
Does this reflect the world as If have experienced it?

I don't like issues in isolation. I like to try and see the whole, to see it's nature (The way a thing moves in order to fulfill it's self)

This with very little effort on my part leads to all sorts of entanglements when I try to express what I am seeing.


The wonderful thing about reason is that it's just so sequential! LOL

When I say reason should be primal, the first thing we reach for,
I of course mean in action. Even when the only action takes place within ones own mind.

But prior to reason and it's foundation, The true reason for reason is perception.
The ascertainment of fact has nothing to do with reason. When people aren't clear about this
they can easily misrepresent almost any given situation to themselves.

Facts do not exist outside of things. Facts are a description of a thing and of things and ultimately facts describe the workings of things.

Facts are only used by reason, facts live in our perception,

So does every thing depend upon the eye of the beholder? While beauty may indeed reside there
Truth does not. Truth resides in the world at large.

The world in it's entirety is spiritual law made physically manifest.

A law not external to things but inherent within them.

:The energy carries the law
The law regulates the energy

Put another way

The creative force and the receptive force,
or
God and his bride.
Holy Holy Holy.

So in any effort to speak clearly about about my own perception that seeks to know things as a single piece of cloth upon which my truth is written ,is bound to go far afield.

I start out trying to answer you point for point but then, unless I have a very dull day indeed,
my muse let's her scent linger supine across my imagination.

And I end up typing exactly what she tells me to and will follow her into the most outrageously circumventual responses.

And I post them!!

You see I think she knows great big bunches about you and me that I do not or not always.
She expresses things in ways that often take me me surprise.

She carries waters from a deeper well.
So I steal her answers and give them to others as if they were my own.

I certainly recognize all my aspirations in her answers.

So now it's your job to figure out if this is a proper answer that brings understanding or if I'm just off being dazzled by my muse again.

Once you grab a tiger by the tail the very worse thing you can do is let her go!

I don' think our conversations reflect badly upon either of us. We are looking out into our worlds and we encounter one another. How should we ignore what's been placed in front of us?

I like these little adventures we have together. And as much as I like oppressing you I do my very best to be clear and cogent as I am sure you do as well.

In the long run disagreements are and will be impossible to avoid. This is of little consequence.

So long as we each see that our best interests lie in holding together
such disagreements will always be a quickly passing matter.

We are just following our own natural inclinations.

"That's way God planed it, That's the way God meant it to be"

For my part, I have tried in every way I know how to express my love for each of you.

"Dear landlord please don't put a price on my soul,
My burden is heavy and my dreams are beyond control

You know that when that steam boat whistle blows
I'm going to give you all I've got to give,
And I do hope you receive it well,
depending on the way that you feel that you've lived."
Bob Dylan

Ancient China has a different fool than we do, In China the fool is not seen as something bad. Just as being an inexperienced and naive youth. Here's what the I-Ching says about this fool.

"It is a holy task to teach the fool."

When we give aid to one another we touch upon the divine.
When we love one another we are divine. For this is how we celebrate Heaven and do our Creator's will.

I haven't said this before. But to my understanding of these things we are forging eternal bonds.

We are uniting under Heaven all that can be united. Our work will be consecrated if not in this life, then we will complete our labors in the next.

But I caution, that we do well not to stare directly into the sun for very long. The sun is not for looking at. Instead it illuminates everything else that we are meant to see.

When I reflect I can see that the Sun shines upon this world but that it also shines within every creature and plant that grows upon our Earth.

So we are given two lights one for the day and one to follow from within in to the night.
Into the night where the next day is being born.

"Everything that cast a shadow has some source of light"
Blindness, blindness and sight."
Joni Michell

peek a boo I see you! ":O}

"Once more into the breach dear friends"

George, the Dems do have an answer, the only answer out side of the courts.
It's called an election.

Politics is dirty and an ugly business. It's attracts people who believe in power. Who believe in forcing people to do their will.
Bernie does very much seem to be different Look what happened to him..

But your looking in the wrong direction..

Everyone now in office was elected by the people... in mostly legal ways.
Yet I've been told I'm to hard on the brain dead to lazy to look into Trump even in the most superficial way, voters

There's nothing secret about trumppy. Everything about him was right out there in the open for the whole world to see. So why didn't they see?

I would like to assert that they did. WE are looking at malice. They elected trump for his malice. for his racism, for his hatred of the poor. Do you hear any of them saying "No Wait we didn't know he would hurt kids!?

I don't.

There is evil in the world and in our age it seldom has to dress up as the good. For in our world evil is really quite popular.
This IS what Americans wanted. Or were to indifferent to vote against. Either way It is the American voter who is culpable.

And it is for the American voter I reserve my greatest contempt.
In my mind we had three choices, Bad, worst and Bernie.

We went straight for pure evil. No one can tell me we didn't have a choice worth making. Good men have been corrupted though out our past. Reagan, Clinton and Bush needed to deceive us to gain election, but how hard was that to do?

Trump strolled out wearing horns and carrying a pitch fork and the Christian right rushed to his door.
We had a choice and now we blame who we choose. Trummy is indeed an evil shit.

But he's the evil shit we choose to empower. We need to do some real soul searching if we are not to endlessly repeat our mistake.

"For the fault lies not in our stars but within ourselves."
(Shakespeare )

So...how do we educate the masses?

Here's our fate in a nutshell.
The masses don't want to be educated. The masses want to get drunk and screw.
Nothing particularly wrong with that, except they have the vote.

We need to become better people before we can have a better governance.

So....The work of the ages fall to us. As does the need to improve ourselves.

I don't see any quick fixes here. But I do see a dim light shining upon the far horizon.

After Global warming a new humanity might emerge to lick her wounds and begin another way of being human.

If this is no solution, then there is no solution.

Jesus didn't come for the many because the many don't want to be saved.

We are few and we are getting fewer all the time.

Like John the Baptist we are voices calling out in the wilderness.
But the wilderness has voices of it's own.
Voices the masses feel more akin to .

We have seen the depths to which the Christian religion has sunk to in America.
They voted for Trumpet and left Jesus hanging upon the cross of ages.

How much more un-Godly can they get?

I'm happy to tell you. up until around 1930 The Christian churches of the day use to organize vacations though out the South. Whole train loads of people, one train after another. Whole families vacationing together under their Shepherd's arm.
They came for all the attractions and towns all along the tracks to hell made sure that they had entertainments enough to hold the interest of their visitors..and Oh the songs of Jesus they sang!

Here's what they came for.

Each town would try and outdo the next in the torture and the burning of black people. They would hang upwards to 25 men women and children at a time, Whole families of black people were popular when they could get them.
( Knowing the preferences of white folks , black families would scatter. So often the white folks just pretended they were a family when they set them alight. (can't disappoint the kids!))

They had tar and feather pavilions and drag'em until the peel races.
The often left for the next town with dozens of blacks chained and dragging behind the train.

Strong men competed in how deeply
they could get the whip to cut into flesh. while their children laughed and played "catch a ni;;;;;; by the toe.

This is who we are. If you doubt it's universality let us consider one African king who ate an infant a day though out his long life.

This is who we are unless we make an absolute determination that we should be better. This is civilizations set point. We begin with what is lowest and meanest and we try, god knows we try, to rise above it into something like, well into something like Jesus.

"This is not my kingdom were it my kingdom I would fight. This is not my kingdom.
J.C.

In light of all this I feel obliged to repeat something my teacher said to me.

"There is nothing wrong with the world, if you think there is you had better look again."

So hey! he was my teacher so I looked and looked.'

What I found was a perfect world. What I found was a very flawed humanity trying to make do in a perfect world for an imperfect profit.
This life maybe our birth place,and it may not be our finale place of residence.

Always look at yesterday if you wish to see beyond tomorrow.
Look at yesterday where all of humanities sins are hiding.

Today is the only time in which we can find or give forgiveness.

Let us not waste our time. Let us be about our fathers business and let forgiveness be our watch word.

Oh no!
They say silence is a fine teacher. But I think you meant to bring us words as well as pictures and I'm only getting your pictures, no words.
Let me reboot and see if that helps,....sometimes it does.

Only a little better. But I'm turning on the subtitles and they work.. I'll get back once I've read your pictures.":O}

You don't give one such as myself something like this and not expect a reply.":O}

We are finite, God and his hand maiden truth are infinite.It is simply the case the the finite while part of the infinite cannot of itself grasp the infinite in any meaningful way.
So how can we hope to know what is more than we are?

"A man's reach should exceed his grasp or what's a heaven for?"

Only when what is more than we are, in grace, places itself beneath us and raises us up.
Then as the poets tell us we may see Him in a grain of sand.

So when we address the infinite we seek and look for stories that we might try and understand what is simply beyond our understanding.

He got one thing wrong, our alien priest. The seeker is the center of the universe. In infinity all points are center.
without a perimeter, then you my friend are the center of the universe.

Let's think about this for it has wide ranging implications.

For one it indicates that God centered his universe upon every single point in his universe.
This means he is always everywhere equally present in his universe.
This means that I can stand no closer to nor further away from his presence than you.
It follows that each and every one of his creatures is the very center of his attention.

Yes I agree that we all start in the river but the mouth of a river would not be God, but our parents.
God is ocean. beyond the deeps, sky beyond the stars, mind beyond thought.
Alpha and Omega.

Beyond this servants ability to say.,
And yet i can still find him at rest in my heart and yours.

Mine is but yet another story,

The only other thing that knows infinity, that speaks directly to the Great Maker is the capacity to love without limits. For loves capacity knows no limitation.

We I think can look there for God's motivation as well as his methodology.

He did it for love he used love to do it with. His end game is love of you. you are clay from his hand that bears the shape of his hand,
in the shape of your soul.

Our souls fit the shape of God's hand. Our souls seek out that which gave them shape and form.

Anyhow that's Thursday.":O}

I need to make a correction in my little missive.
The mouth of the river would be our children, like salmon swimming up stream. The source of the river would be our parents releasing us into the stream of life. God is still Ocean.
As I said imperfect analogies are the best we can do here. But better than my own really should be available to us here.

George let me see if I can bring you a bit of hope":O}
"To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven."

The Golden age of Greece lasted but 50 years. In that time they produces Aristotle, Socrates and Plato.
These three men created the foundation of western civilization.

The Golden age of the Bisentine (sp) empire lasted 50 years. Both China and India have had three golden ages, none endure more that a generation, more than 5o years,

But you just gotta know that these cats seeded knowledge into their entire cultures. Those seeds grew often in most terrible conditions, but when the dust settled there was Plato staring us in the face, elevated and serine.

Like Socrates Confucius was never able to get those in power to establish a state based upon his principles.
He met with failure after failure in his efforts to bring civility and justice to mankind. Realize that before Confucius, the only justice we knew were the whims of war lords. After Confucius There stood in the Chinese mind one illuminating light, The concept of a "Superior man" of "noble men"The sacrificial man became known though out China. From that moment on the Chinese knew what the goal was, though few ever attained it, the many benefited from their efforts.

We did not lose Socrates in the chaos that followed Athens fall in upon herself.
These cats did not work for one time and one place. They worked for all times and all places.

They established truths that will never be lost to mankind. We may ignore those truths in our folly but folly always brings regrets. 2000 years were to pass between the democracy established in Greece. and The French revolution and the establishment of our own democracy.

When we did so, guess where the founding fathers look to for guidance? Well look at the architecture of that day. Look at Monticello, the statues, and whose works filled the libraries of the day.

Socrates made far more of an advance in America than was dreamed of in Greece.

Our mathmations, astronomers and Artists work not for one time or one place but to further mankind in all times and places.

We are in our time in for a very bad time, which to me sounds like most of human history...

Here's what may save us. This world is perfect. You can through a Snowball earth at her and in a few hundred thousand years we have the beaches of Tahiti.

We have been here before...in every age of man.

We have been reduced to less than 5000 individuals at least five times in our climb from up from our animal natures. We KNOW this from genetic markers. LESS than 5000 people in the world.

I have spoken about what is known. Here I offer for consideration what I have come to believe.

We cannot fail. We will not fail. Nothing can change what heaven has ordained. We will get there because what is more than what we are commands it.

The Great Maker will have his way with us as he does with all things.
Billions may pass away, but he will have his say.
God plays the long game. God is placing eternity with in our reach.
Perhaps not for the many but for the few.

Or

For a few at a time. Leave not forget that God has a very long day.. He will have his way of us.
Even if he has to drag us though hell to achieve it, the outcome can never be in doubt.

We did not create ourselves. God and Socrates did. God and the Great profits of mankind
have and will continue to create and then find a way for mankind to go forward.

They war and work for us. They war against all the enemies of mankind, Ignorance hatred greed and the all their ugly little brothers.
I believe that Heaven is absolutely determinate to save all of us that can be saved.
To have mankind with him as we grow into the perfection he has dreamed for us.

"Have no fear of atomic energy cause none of them can stop the time."
When all we have is hope and faith we dare not disparage what we have hoped and prayed for.

But rather we should prepare ourselves for the times to come. Make ourselves strong in our intentions and unfailing in our determination that what God has willed we will see done. Or parish a thousand times in our attempt and see it as a small price to pay for what we have been given.

"Though all men live in ignorance before mystery
We need not live in darkness
Justice is foundation and mercy eternal."

Cheer up George this isn't your first rodeo! ":O}

I'm still trying to come to terms with what I just saw.It was a tornado. In California.

I'm sitting here trying to think how to describe this. If I say fire you will think of things burning and this wasn't that. This was a blow torch traveling at at lest 25 miles an hour chasing, chasing the car that made the film I saw.

MY friends this was a real tornado, not a California whirlwind. as it moved though trees it towered over them hundreds of feet.The funnel was fire, just a blazing torch nothing could stand against. I didn't see in on the ground for intervening trees. It tore Mansanita up by their roots, some the toughest roots you ever want to see and it did not hover, it just past through and took the trees at an very fast run. faster than a man could run anyway.

The film lasted around 3-4 minutes. The whole time the driver and camera person were on a parallel road.
The the tornado came for them, I don't know how else to put it. The were continuously accelerating at moderate, pace so was the tornado. They finally floored it and evidently made it to safety.

The shape of things to come. Massive flooding in Our East The west is ablaze and EU farmers are bust due to drought Middle East farmers have it even worse.

Were I a young man I would be looking in the direction of self sufficiency and mobility. Though I do not know how one might manage both.

The youth of our nation are standing now at the precipice.
At the precipice, where people change.

They are positioned so that they can see what we have done while the world changed.
They can see the world changing.
They can see what must be done. If only they can free themselves from their parents indifference.

But if firery tornadoes don't scare them then we are in for a very hard lesson all around.

Eisenhower:Upon leaving the office of the
presidency.

"The greatest threat to our democracy today is our military industrial complex."

Paraphrasing General Blackjack Pershing upon his early retirement from the Marine Corps.

"I cannot remain at my post while the US congress turns my beloved Marine Corps into a bunch thugs with which to treated all of South America."We were warned by Patriots at every step of the way.

I too wish the News agencies wold draw a clearer and darker line between the weather we are experiencing all over the globe and Global climate change. But anyone who watches the news regularly would have to be brain dead not to make the connection. Unfortunately there seems to be a whole lot of brain dead going on,and on and on.

Leave us not forget that MacArtur wanted very badly to nuke China. In order to end the Korean war, a novel approach to peace I must say.

He openly threatened China with Nukes just before Truman gave him his walking papers. The Joints Chiefs of Staff completely Agreed with Truman that he had to go.

Interesting side note, Truman left office completely broke. His state had to raise funds or see him on the streets. It was due his unusual circumstance that we added a retirement fund for Presidents.

Image someone who had made no effort to use the office to gain monies. He may not be the first but he certainly the last to do so.